Free Falling
by fictitiousburn
Summary: A reflection of feelings that surfaced during the arrival of Sozin's Comet continue to haunt Toph, years after it ends (Sokka/Toph)


**free falling, **an **all canon compliant** unrequited love story  
**warning:** mentions of character death and mildly sexual situations

Her hands shook tremendously and she cursed under her breath, every curse she had heard her instructors mumble over the course of her studying, every curse she had passed by a sailor using. She emptied the entire arsenal of words and tried to look up into the vast expanse of sky in front of her instead of at the ground so far below her. Her hands were small and tiny and she wasn't _that_ heavy, earthbender or not, so why was she so scared of falling? It terrified her from a deep, low place in her stomach. Maybe that was weighing her down, but with a good reason. She was young and didn't want to die; she had _everything_ to be scared of. But still she tried to be hopeful as she stared up blankly into where she felt the outline of her savior. Crouched against the weakening side of the airship, his brows furrowed with slipping hope, worry, and the burden of holding her life in his hands.

It had been free falling when they fell off of the side of the ship and the only relief had been when Toph felt Sokka catch against something and grab her hand tightly. But she knew that this was it, it was the last free fall. The next one would be to her death.

Toph stared blankly up towards Sokka, listening to him groan about his leg and hearing his defense of the small sliver of the airship that he was hanging onto. She blinked her eyes and was surprised that tears fell from them. She had never cried like this and without cause as well. Sokka's fingers slipped within her own, so that they were no longer clasping hands with their palms together. She was now hanging onto Sokka with the crevices of her knuckles pressed against his fingernails, her earthen worn hands clinging to him with as much desperation as one could muster within the two knuckles of their fingers. She couldn't see Sokka, she wouldn't have known the difference of whether he was slowly letting go of her hand or simply falling weak after the few moments of her being suspended over the earth. She couldn't see whether he was looking at her and she could barely feel his body language from the altitude she was at.

She couldn't see, but there were many other that were more blind than she was.

Sokka was blind. Even though Toph's eyes served no purpose other than to be pretty (and for her to frighten people when she stared at them as if she could see them), sometimes she turned them towards the Water Tribe warrior with an affectionate look plastered across her face. Toph wasn't as hard to read as the earth she bended; her only tactics to avoid people figuring out how she felt was pelting them with rocks or hiding her face so it was unreadable. He was an idiot if he couldn't see the clear infatuation that she had for him. She blushed around him and Toph blushed for no one. And now Sokka held her entire life in his hands and she cried because she didn't think he understood how very accurate that was. If he let her fall, if he let her _die_, it would only be a reprieve from the sneaking sense that she had that he would never return her feelings, a fate she would have to resign to that was worse than being splattered over the earth from which she came.

Just as quickly as she had weighed her life into his hands, it fell apart. He let go of her as something collided with their airship and she was relieved as she crashed and rolled against a hard surface, hastily wiping her eyes before Sokka or anyone else could see her. "How did that happen? Did boomerang come back?"

His words jolted her back to reality. "No!" His answer was incredulous until he added, "Suki did!"

Suki. Toph should have known better. They were in the middle of a battle. He had grabbed Toph's hand to keep her safe, he had covered her with his entire body to brace for flying debris and collisions, and it was still Suki he spoke about in that lovestruck voice. She swallowed the thick lump in her throat because she knew she had a mission to complete. But it hadn't stopped her from thinking about it later, while she sat with all of her friends, how just for a few dire moments, it had just been her and Sokka, her life in his hands, free falling.

* * *

"Trust me."

Toph couldn't remember the name of the guy she had brought back to her extravagantly decorated apartment. Her mind was hazy with the indulgence of rice wine and her hair was loose and her laughter abounding. His hands tickled hers affectionately, his fingers dancing across the centers of her palms and rubbing up the sides of her bare arms. Bare arms—now that was a change of pace. She hadn't needed anyone to help her, but sometimes she called her friend Hana to stay with her. Hana had been over and helped her dress for her date, which had gone surprisingly well. She hadn't intended to bring anyone home with her, but his voice was soothing and comforting and deep. It made her feel like a woman, even though she was only sixteen years old. 'I bet you'll feel everything,' he had whispered to her as he led her out of the restaurant they had dined at and it sent visible chills across her body.

His hands were warm as he moved to sit behind her, pushing the hair away from shoulders and neck. His hands crawled innocently across her shoulder blades, walking themselves across her shoulders and down the length of her arms until his hands reached her hands and interlaced their fingers together. Toph felt a heated blush rise to her cheeks and a tense clenching between her thighs. She had never been renowned for her patience and had been about to make a show to attest to it when she felt warm lips across her back in between her shoulder blades where his hands had been. A high-pitched noise escaped her mouth and she closed her eyes, as if it made a difference, and let her mind carry her away.

She had imagined it as she felt it.

Sokka kissing her back gently, his rough hands skimming over the surface of her skin and offering a delightful friction against her peachy colored flesh. His fingers nimbly pull at the sash around her and pull her decorative, strapless top from her body. Hearing small whispers of pleasure as his dark skinned hands cupped her hips, his fingers climbing around to meet at her navel and move up her front, hooking themselves under her bindings but not choosing to free her of them yet. They danced lightly over the barriers, teasing innocently and accidentally, testing her patience, taking her higher and higher off the ground. The feeling that it gave her to grind her hips back against his and the blush it caused her when she thought about where exactly this was leading.

"Toph," the voice spoke and it sounded lidded with desire, deep and sensual in the curve of her ear and she shuddered against him. He was gentle with her and it only helped descend her further into fantasy. She could have her moment with Sokka one way or another, but the fervent imaginations she was subjecting herself to only increased her impatience and tested her limits. She allowed him to run his fingers through her hair but she had taken it upon herself to relieve her clothing—every single garment and binding—so she could turn and do the same for him. She'd felt the smooth muscle of his strong arms under her hands and had remembered how often Sokka goofed around swinging his boomerang or how much she had missed him when he had gone to train himself in the ways of the sword but how fit he had returned. She remembered how solid his legs were, how light on his feet he was whenever she sensed his vibrations, like he was dancing constantly.

Her mind carried her as far away as she needed to go but her body froze momentarily as she felt something foreign brushing her. She knelt, pushing her toes and the balls of her feet against the firm mattress and she could feel the outline against the bed, the one she had imagining to be Sokka. She could feel the smooth curve of his head as he leaned back and she knew it was closely shaved when he had allowed her to touch it in the beginning of their date. She angrily pushed her hands into his chest and felt the markings of a tattoo, no doubt an Earth Kingdom one, and only stomped to her feet, barely refraining from having earth shooting up from some other place in her apartment. Almost-Sokka, she decided she would call him, since his name escaped her mind and since he _wasn't_ who she wanted to be sleeping with.

"You should go," her voice was angry, disappointed, and hurt. She hadn't registered all of them, just the anger, but as she felt almost-Sokka's feet hit the floor, it was him who seemed to be trembling in front of her, redressing himself and most likely wondering why she had torn their clothes off and was now urging him to leave. She was stubbornly tying her own bindings back into place, cursing that she couldn't go out in the middle of the night partially tipsy to find Hana, who only lived a few blocks down from where she was. She continued to curse under her breath until she heard footsteps and felt him approaching her, his hands sliding the ends of the bindings from her and tying them back together. A blush rose to her cheeks but she quickly pushed it away as she took a large step away from him.

"If you're going to have a tantrum about not getting any, by all means!" Toph spread her hands, anger pouring out of her mouth as she folded her arms across her chest both out of rage and out of shame for being undressed. It was something she hadn't found herself doing much, at least not in front of anyone but Hana, but now was different. Now, she just wanted the almost-Sokka gone as far away as she could have possibly managed. If it wasn't for the stories above her, she'd have catapulted him out of the building through the roof with a well placed stalagmite to the feet.

She could feel his heart beating erratically. Almost-Sokka stepped closed to her and reached a hand to touch her cheek. "I'm sorry." She spluttered indignantly at his apology, at how his hand _almost_ felt like Sokka's and how she could feel the genuine emotion behind his apology. She had no idea what he was apologizing for and she wanted to scream at him, but just like that, he was gone, shutting her door behind him firmly and toppling the entire pyramid built in her imagination and she found herself free falling again, just for that moment.

* * *

There should have been _no_ reason for Toph to be crying, again, like a fool. And yet, she stood in the living room of her large house, fat tears rolling down her cheeks. She was too old to be crying like this, she was thirty-four years old, for crying out loud. But yet with her feet planted firmly against the floor, she couldn't stop crying. She could feel two other pairs of feet on the ground. One was her companion, Hana, who kept her company during the days where she wasn't busy teaching metalbending at her school, and one was a much tinier, defenseless, and helpless child.

Lin.

Lin Bei Fong was _walking_.

And her mother was crying despite Hana's gently coaxing and advising to not cry. The rounded tables that Toph had precariously made after sanding at the corners of her low table, had the tiny girl's hand prints pressed into them. Toph had felt Lin stand up on the low table many times, but now the little girl was wobbling and toddling away from it. Toph had called for Hana before she had started crying, quietly, as to not startle her daughter. Toph covered her face with her hands and Hana rubbed her back soothingly. "Toph," her cheery voice had been dialed down a little as to not irritate her friend, "this is normal."

"This is _not_ normal! I'm turning into a regular old lily-liver! She's not even earthbending or swordfighting or using the bathroom on her own—which is the _real_ tragedy, I should be crying because I have to change baby shit. She's just walking! This is ridiculous," she huffed as her bangs floated from her face and settled back over the ridge of her nose.

"You're a mother, Toph."

That was all Hana had to say to send her over the edge, and she was back to crying in her hands again.

* * *

"I won't go." Her voice was stubborn and cold as she held Lin in her lap. The girl was much too old to be seated in her mother's lap still, but she relished in the attention that her mother was giving her and she could see that it was comforting her mother to hold her hands and bury her face against her hair.

"But Toph—"

"But nothing! Get out, Sugar Queen, no one gave you permission to come traipsing in here."

"Hana opened the door for me."

"Damnit! Hana!" Toph stood from her chair and allowed Lin to slide to the floor, nudging her with her closed fist as her way of saying run along. Now she stood across from Katara, feeling the fierce sadness pouring from the Master Waterbender. It was enough to enrapture Toph if she let it, but she was hoping her firm insistence would drive the other woman away. It didn't work; perhaps Katara was almost as stubborn as she was.

"But Sokka—"

"Don't!" Toph's voice had morphed dangerously, her tone pleading and infuriated and pained all at once, like an opponent had struck her to the ground and was about to deliver the final blow. "Don't you dare guilt me into this, Sugar Queen. I can't go and I won't go and that's final."

But she was wrong. Katara had somehow convinced her to let Lin stay with Hana while she traveled with her and Aang to the South Pole. She had managed to remain rigid like the cold polar caps until she arrived on the snow front and instantly, Katara, Aang, and she were swamped with condolences and comforts from the Southern Water Tribe members. The group of them were lead to a startlingly close edge of ice and that was when Toph heard it—the crying. The heartbeat was almost hard to recognize, but she knew by the heart-wrenching sobs that it was Suki. She didn't stop to regard either of them and she felt Katara move to her side and heard her silently begin to cry as well.

This was why Toph had refused to come to the funeral.

She wasn't about to cry in front of Sokka's sister and Sokka's wife and Sokka's best friend. And what had she been to him? Sokka's blind friend? Sokka's responsibility? Sokka's _second_ little sister? With a pain that started deep in her stomach and stretched its claws into her chest, Toph turned away from the group and sought a place to be alone. Aang, Katara, and Suki could carry on with the preparations and come and find her later. If they didn't? Good. She didn't have to listen to everyone's aching hearts through her feet as they sent the warrior out to sea. Ice was an infuriating substance because it was as firm and solid as the earth but she couldn't bend it and as a result, had folded her legs and plopped down in the crevice she had hunted down, pushing herself further and further out of the view of everyone.

She couldn't believe Sokka was dead. Sokka, the goofy warrior who had once tried to protect an entire Water Tribe village as a child, who protected his sister and his friends and his wife with his own life, who made corny jokes and never seemed to stop smiling, who inhaled food moreso than air. Sokka, who had held her life in her hands. Sokka, who she had loved—who she still loved. Toph pressed her fists against her eyes angrily, willing herself not to cry as she remembered how it felt having him hold her entire life in the crook of his fingers, how it had felt when he had let her go, how for one second she expected to plummet to her death until her brain registered the movements of a second airship into their first and the solid ground underneath her. "Toph?" She heard someone call her name as she shirked further into the shadows of her impromptu hiding place, knowing with a sinking feeling in her heart that they were looking for her so they could start the services.

Thinking that she and the people closest to Sokka would have to send him floating away into the sea like a true Water Tribe warrior was all it took to send her spiraling down into depression, her tears rising, and her heart clenching in the familiar feeling she had when Sokka had lost his grip and sent her crashing down. And she felt that feeling of déjà vu, that this was it. This was the last free fall. The next one would be to her death.

Well, her mind tried to comfort her. At least in death, it would just be her and Sokka, free falling.


End file.
